Sunday, April 29, 2012

We all focus on our living rooms, dining rooms and every other room and how fabulous and crash hot they are looking.

Although there is nothing wrong with making each and every room in your home crash hot, but what about the entrance to our home?.

The entrance is the most important, stamp your personality through the entrance way of your home.

Add drama in your entrance way, If you have a lot of natural light make the entrance more grand, exaggerate its openness, a hanging chandelier will create ambience. If you are on the other end of the scale and have Minimum natural light, bring rich tones into the area, by using hanging shades,standard lamps or even strategically placed ceiling spotlights.

You may only need something simple to make your entrance grand-

Use the wall space in your entrance wisely.

The use of a mirror to make the space grow, is always a good trick.

You can use the walls like gallery walls, bearing a large piece of artwork or even small intimate framed photos.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

A lot of our clients ask us what our advice is when re designing or decorating their house.

The best most simple piece of advice we can give is that you have to sort out and uncover what you want your home to represent, keeping in mind your desires and making the space functional for that purpose.

When looking at your space you need to dissect what you visually want and balance it out against what will work for you; what's going to be easy to maintain.

When you take on, as i like to call it mission statement, disregard counting your dollars our for every little aspect of the project- the cost will be the cost.

But if you make the correct decisions you will save money.

3 key elements when de designing any space is tone, texture and light. What do these elements bring to a room?

Whether the room is larger or smaller, open or a more closed space each of these elements are going to help you achieve a mood, which in turn is going to help you create depth and warmth

In every room you want to create balance using each of this elements in a unique way.

Beat the eggwhites with the cream of tartar to snowy peaks. Fold a spoonful of the eggwhites into the sifted mixture to blend and then fold in the rest of the eggwhites quickly but with a light hand.

Spoon teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the paper-lined trays, leaving 3cm between blobs. Do this as quickly as possible and place trays immediately into the preheated oven. Cook for 8 minutes or until the macaroons feel firm on the outside.

Wet a teatowel with cold water, wring out and place on the bench. Remove trays from oven and place on the damp cloth for a few minutes. With a spatula slide the macaroons onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before filling. If not needed immediately, store unfilled macaroons in an airtight container.

Makes 16 pairs.

Chocolate ganache filling

Break chocolate into small pieces and pulverise in the food processor to a powder.

Bring cream and butter to the boil in a pan.

With motor running pour the boiling cream mixture onto the chocolate in a steady stream. Process until smooth. Refrigerate until just cold and then beat in an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Use straight away.

Excess ganache will become too stiff to spread. Allow it to return to room temperature and then rebeat for a few minutes to regain spreadable consistency.

Happy baking,

Andrea June

This recipes is featured in the book, Autumn which is available now in all good bookstores RRP $34.95. To order direct call 1300 656 059 or visit www.smh.com.au/store

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I am going on some wonderful overseas adventures in the coming months - where?, soon shall be revealed.

Until then we must keep focused on what we all want to do, and that is complete mission statement; no matter what that is.

What's your mission statement?

Turning a space into something sophisticated and suave?, Turning tizzy on it's head in your Loft apartment or are you like me and want to turn a casual space into something timeless and atmospheric?.

Personally at this moment in time i love retaining the feeling of a cozy space that i won't get sick of in a month or two,(although to tell you the truth nothing stays the same in my house for more than two months).

The space is not very large but i wanted to add depth, have the space carry boldness also be timeless and charming at the same time.

Isn't it warm and divine, a home that isn't going to be cold in autumn or winter.